I remember ice skating on the old quarry by Grammas by moonlight, with a campfire, hot chocolate and about 30 people. I remember sledding with about 8 carloads of family members in a snowstorm and sub-zero winds, followed by a campfire and huge pot of chile, that we ate with our gloves on. I remember family picnics at Grammas with a huge pot of beef and noodles and tables laden with home made goodies while the kids played tag and the adults played euchre until midnight. I remember our annual family reunion at a campground with the evening meal cooked in a 55 gallon drum and the breakfast fried in a huge skillet over the campfire, and about 100 people there. I remember a fourth of July at our house with barbecue, swimming ,fireworks and kids skinny dipping in the dark. (Actually, our reunion last year had some people skinny dipping too.)

I remember our week-end cookout benefit for a friend. One person didn’t know how to tell when the toast was done, and we carefully explained that it popped up all by itself. And the guy fixing pancakes just poured the batter on the whole grill and cut it in squares. And Terry served hot chocolate with two broken wrists in casts. And we actually made alot of money!

The kids vehicles have always been a source of amusement, starting with “Todd’s Tub” a little metal pedal car that 5 year old Merle Todd pedaled around our circular driveway chasing his two teenage brothers on their motor bikes. Scott spent more time working on his bike, replacing parts, and rebuilding, than riding it. But when it came time to fix the mower, he was not capable of fixing it.  In fact it was probably in a constant state of dissection because he used the parts on his bike.

Frank took off in his van one summer to be entered in a show … with the paint on the side still wet!  Adam entered his van in a show, and won, with pin-striping done at the last minute with a magic marker. His van developed a hole in the radiator on the road with other vans and everyone had an “instant repair” remedy ….he ended up with 2 cups on oatmeal, a gallon of ditch water and 3 eggs in an over heated radiator. It quit leaking, but it sure smelled nasty!!

Traveling on a plane is a challenge for adults,  flying with kids can be a life changing experience.  At security I had to dump my purse … talk about embarrassing!!  There, before everyone’s eyes is my hoard of safety pins, a furry pacifier (my youngest was an 8 yr. old) and a bottle of pills that would rival “Valley of the Dolls”.  I had anti-acid, anti-diarrhea, anti-venom (just in case) and anti-malaria, (for when the plane crashed in the jungle between Cleveland and Atlanta.) The kids discovered spit balls wouldn’t stick to the ceiling but clung to the stewardesses hair, pretzels could be used as a Frisbee, and the toilets had great blue water.

Everything was fine until they announced that Customs would be checking our suitcases and I remembered the kitchen knife set I had bought at a yard sale on the way to the airport, and the water pistol that looked like an AK47 … this might take awhile to explain.

This is #18. “Hair”

Some people think a trip to the hairdresser is either a weekly necessity or a treat. I used to look at it about like going to the dentist. I had long hair and beauticians got that “chain-saw-massacre” look in their eyes and those promises of “I’ll only trim off the split ends” meant a bushel of shorn locks around my chair.

When washing my hair at home there was always that moment when you step into the shower and wonder if the shampoo is still out in the front yard where the kids were washing the car, or if there were any dry towels or will I have to dry my hair on toilet tissue. Again.

I was once given a gift certificate to a salon and when I walked in and saw the girl assigned to me had a worse haircut than my dog I started getting nervous. She pulled my hair back, sprayed it, pinned, pulled, pinned and sprayed. My eyes were little slits from my scalp being pulled so tight. On the way home I removed about 30 pounds of hairpins and walked in the door at home looking like I’d stuck my finger in an electric socket. “And this cost $30?”‘ was the greeting I received.

I always cut the boys hair myself, with 6 boys we just didn’t go to a barber every week. Traditionally the first haircut at a barber is accompanied by tears as kids lose their baby curls. I’m sure that must have been embarrassing at Army induction.

In The Country
Growing up in the country gives a slightly different view of things vs growing up in the city. During the summers our cousin David would come from down town Akron to our place to spend what seemed like a year but was likely a month.  My youngest brother Terry was probably so thankful to see David arrive because he knew as long as he was there his cousin became the target of “Brotherly Love”.
We would say “David, lets go play army in the woods” Mom and David had no idea that this was actually a live fire exercise. So off we would go, BB Guns stuffed under our shirts so the “enemy” wouldn’t see our high tech weapons. Mom was right, someone always came home crying. (usually David)
One evening ,(I was about 13 or 14, Merle was 12, as was David,) mom was cutting potatoes for french fries and David watched awhile then asked what she was making. “French Fries” she replied and David laughed, “No really, what are you making?” (As if anyone in our house would tell him something that wasn’t true!) “Okay, David,” Mom said, “where do french fries come from”. “McDonalds” he answered with a straight face.
There is one other lesson that was learned.
Country boys get it back when they go to the city. I went to Akron with David one summer. David’s mother brought home KFC (they never cooked at home) and we ate the chicken on good plates using silverware and cloth napkins. After eating Marilyn said, Adam, please put the dishes in the dishwasher.” I put them in the sink because at our house that was the dishwasher. David said
“No, in the dishwasher” and walked over and opened a door on the front of the cabinets and low and behold….a MACHINE that washed
dishes. Who would have thought it!!!

Every family has cute little words that their kids twisted around while learning to talk….some not so cute….and we keep using them until they become part of our vocabulary. When Frank was little he called his grandmother “Mo” and she was “Mo” to everyone the rest of her life.

Tonja started saying “hang-a-ber” for hamburger, and “agilator” for alligator, and we still use these. Merle said “shear-gifter” for gear shift and Nikki called cookies “cooks” and I still put “cooks” on the grocery list. She also said “pisgetti” for spaghetti.

Merle would stand up behind the steering wheel of the car and say he was going to “Africa, Italy and North Carolina” and whenever someone said “where are we going?” that was the reply we gave. Terry, being the youngest, was more often than not overruled and constantly said “Fine!” with his arms crossed; 30 years later I still say that frequently, guess I get overruled alot too.

Brookanna called our dog Goldie “Golygol” and Adam called a badger a “Jabber”. Tonja, at 5, designed her own cuss words,”son of a darn”. She wasn’t allowed to use it again but we still say it, twenty five years later. Or twenty-six….or seven?

I knew it was time to inspect the kids bedroom, under the pretense of ‘redecorating’ when a big sign appeared on the door “Parents Not Allowed”.  I made a half-hearted offer to voice their opinion on the decor, but Scott wanted black walls, black light posters and strobe lights and Frank wanted posters of trucks.  Another argument that would never get settled, so I decided to make the decision myself with brown and orange curtains and bedspreads.  The enthusiastic response was an indifferent shrug and a “mpph”.

So I put on a gas mask and entered the ‘inner sanctum’, literally shoveled out the model parts, dirty clothes and stiff pizza, in equal amounts, and that was just in the doorway.  I scrubbed the sticky red stuff off the wall that was either strawberry jelly or arterial blood; the spit balls on the ceiling which wouldn’t budge, (maybe they used super glue instead or spit.) Or maybe their spit WAS super glue?  I proceeded to ‘redecorate’.  A few weeks later while walking by I caught a glimpse of a black light , truck posters and a strobe light along with the “Parents Not Allowed” sign. Underlined.

Six-Hour Meals

It’s a fact that you should try to all sit down together for one meal a day, but with 6 kids in 6 activities after school, it turned into a long, long meal between 3 and 9.  In rural Ohio, the school system divided the sports venues among several small villages, which meant I would take one boy to wrestling in town A, one to basketball in town B, one to Karate in town C, then race back home to serve nuked plates of food in between trips.

That great spaghetti at 3:00 was okay at 5, edible at 7 and glue by 9.  Sunday meals were somewhat more civilized: there was no food flipping, fork stabbing, burping contests or laughing with cottage cheese in their mouths.  And they never said “Yuck I don’t like that” or they would get another helping.  That misfired once: Adam meant he couldn’t keep peas down …. as we all discovered.  If they didn’t like something, they would gingerly pull the food off their fork with their teeth.. no way would they let their lips touch something yuck.  The dog hovered furtively under the table to catch all those vegetables.  How did they ever get her to eat sauerkraut?

Sickie

Sick time with kids is scary and sometimes funny.  Adam, broken out in a rash to match his red hair, looked and felt very bad. I looked and felt very bad too when I discovered the medicine I was feeding him to cure the allergy was actually causing the allergy!  The couch was where sick kids were placed, since it was difficult to climb into the top bunk with a bowl of chicken soup. If they were in the barf stage I fixed them a nice comfy bed in the bathtub.  One day a feverish Frank was mumbling “I hear hot dogs walking across the floor”  I just agreed and told him I’d keep them quiet.

The boys were seldom sick but when they were it was always the night I was supposed to be the speaker at a banquet or the night before we were to leave for vacation.  Once Merle explode in red dots just hours before company was expected for dinner.  I put up a sign on the door “Quarantine for distemper” but they came in anyway.  When Scott started to recover from a flu event he tried to milk it for all it’s worth. “Mom, bring me some water”, “Can’t you get up and get it yourself?” “I’m a little dizzy” he says. “You should be, when I was in there a few minutes ago you were climbing back up the tree by your window.” B-U-S-T-E-D

Does it Have a Motor?
Girls have dolls and boys have tools, if a boy gets his hands on a screwdriver you can be sure something is going to be dismantled. It’s great when they learn how to fix things, but why do they have to leave so MANY things in pieces, and blow all those fuses? A neighbor was working on his water heater and 7 year old Adam was taking it all in (including the blue language ). Finally he mumbled “Does it have a motor?” and ever since whenever something breaks we all say “Does it have a motor?” As they all took things apart they learned to mutate… the sweeper sported hair dryer parts, the wash machine had auto heater hose and the cars ….. oh my.  The motors were dissected, transmissions arrayed on the front porch, dashes were furred and wheels were traded back and forth. During one major “overhaul” an 8 cylinder motor was set on an old riding mower frame temporarily. A new fuel oil deliveryman was filling our tank and kept looking at the motor… As he got ready to leave he said “Bet that will really fly when you fire it up.”